The effects of fad-dieting on the body

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THE WEIRD, WONDERFUL AND WACKY – STRANGE EFFECTS OF FOOD

There’s food that can alter your state of mind and berries that can alter your taste buds, food can have more effects than making you full.

Have you ever heard the saying “eating cheese gives you nightmares,” and thought that can’t be right? Some of you may have done a small experiment of your own to test it. Proper studies have been done to test whether this old wives tale has some truth to it. Although these studies were not very scientifically viable, being more of a marketing ploy than scientific research, they did find something that could link cheese to bad or vivid dreams. Eating heavy meals with high fat content (cheesy meals) late at night can cause indigestion. Indigestion can disturb your sleep and often disturbed sleep is linked with nightmares that you are more likely to remember in the morning making them vivid in your mind. Of course this effect might have more to do with the overeating and less to do with the cheese but maybe avoid the late night cheese binges just in case!

Imagine if eating an onion tasted like biting into a donut – a rather crunchy donut but sweet non the less. Or if Tabasco sauce tasted like melted chocolate. Well its possible for these things to happen, all you have to do is eat a small red berry before digging into these unconventional snacks. The berry, dubbed the miracle berry, can alter how your taste buds recognize different flavours. Sour and spicy turn into really sweet. The completely harmless berry contains a protein (a small compound) that binds to your taste buds and produces sweet flavours when is comes into contact with acid. The taste bud trip last up to 2 hours, so don’t worry you’ll be able to drink a beer without it turning to custard in your mouth. These miracle berries are hard to come by but if you get the chance throw a crazy food tasting party!

Mushroom can be more than great tasting; they can be absolutely mind altering! Certain types of mushrooms in the Psilocybegenera are a taste of Alice in Wonderland and so are aptly named magic mushrooms. Ingesting magic mushrooms causes a difference in mood, perception and behavior causing the consumer to appear on drugs, which is technically what they are on. Magic mushrooms are a class of psychotropic drug along with the man-made drug LSD (acid) and molecules called psilocybin and psilocin within the mushroom cause their effects. Mushrooms have been around for thousands of years and have been recorded as used in religious or spiritual ceremonies due to the feeling of communing with a higher power. There has been much debate on whether mushies are dangerous (doesn’t sound very dangerous when called mushies huh?) but there is consensus that if you have mental health issues its best to avoid psychotropic drugs!

There you go; 3 foods that can do crazy things to your mind and tongue. Comment if you have any others and if you’ve tried these!!